Subscribe to our Threatpost Today newsletter

Join thousands of people who receive the latest breaking cybersecurity news every day.

The administrator of your personal data will be Threatpost, Inc., 500 Unicorn Park, Woburn, MA 01801. Detailed information on the processing of personal data can be found in the privacy policy. In addition, you will find them in the message confirming the subscription to the newsletter.

*

*

I agree to my personal data being stored and used to receive the newsletter

*

I agree to accept information and occasional commercial offers from Threatpost partners

The administrator of your personal data will be Threatpost, Inc., 500 Unicorn Park, Woburn, MA 01801. Detailed information on the processing of personal data can be found in the privacy policy. In addition, you will find them in the message confirming the subscription to the newsletter.

Facebook Bans More Than 800 Accounts in Disinformation Purge

The move comes a month before the November midterm elections – and at a time when all eyes are on Facebook to see how it protects against disinformation.

Facebook on Thursday announced it has removed hundreds of pages and accounts as the company cracks down on spam. The move comes at a time when Facebook is under intense scrutiny about how it handles misinformation, particularly as the U.S. midterm elections draw near.

The company said it has collectively removed more than 800 pages and accounts showing “inauthentic behavior;” that is, making moves to mislead users about who they are and what they are doing. That could include anything from using the profile to send spam or post comments created to stir up political debate, to money-motivated ad farms disguising themselves as forums for discussion.

“Today, we’re removing 559 pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at the social network, in a Thursday post. “Given the activity we’ve seen — and its timing ahead of the U.S. midterm elections — we wanted to give some details about the types of behavior that led to this action.”

Gleicher stressed that Facebook looked at accounts’ behavior – such as repeatedly posting spam – rather than their content when deciding which accounts, pages or groups to remove.

He said that legitimate reasons do exist for accounts coordinating with one another – including fundraising campaigns – but the motivations of these banned accounts instead seem to be mostly economic or politically-driven.

“Many were using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names and posted massive amounts of content across a network of groups and pages to drive traffic to their websites,” said Gleicher. “Many used the same techniques to make their content appear more popular on Facebook than it really was. Others were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.”

Facebook did not respond to a request for further comment from Threatpost on which pages were banned. But among the accounts that were reportedly removed include Right Wing News, which had a whopping 3.6 million likes. That page pegged itself as “The best conservative news, views, and interviews.” Interestingly, it appears as though the page’s Instagram account is still active – though its Twitter account appears to be suspended.

James Reader, managing editor at one of those banned pages, Reverb Press, argued on Friday that the page did not post fake news: “We have always stood up to fact-checking. Left-leaning, yes. But fake news? NEVER,” he said in a Tweet.

so .@facebook basically killed my business, and singled .@ReverbPress out as a bad publisher out of 800 pages on both sides of the aisle, for severely bullshit reasons. we have always stood up to fact-checking. left leaning, yes. but fake news? NEVER. google us. #FuckFacebook

Since Facebook came under criticism for how it collects and uses personal data, as well as how it has dealt with accounts peddling fake news and misinformation in the past, the social media giant has been more carefully tracking accounts.

Facebook’s action also comes a month before the November midterm elections – while all eyes are on Facebook to see how it protects against those attempting to sway users’ political leanings with false or misleading statements.

It’s not the first crackdown – In July, Facebook said that it removed 32 pages from its platform involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” At the time the social media giants said it identified the coordinated efforts on eight Facebook Pages and 17 profiles on Facebook, as well as seven Instagram accounts. Facebook said that the earliest page was created in March 2017, while the latest was created in May 2018. The most-followed Facebook Pages banned during that crackdown included “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation,” “Mindful Being” and “Resisters.”

Then in August, it made a 652-page dent in a sizable alleged Iran-backed influence campaign that stretches back to 2017, with some pages in operation since 2013. The accounts were active on both Facebook and Instagram, where the bad actors were using false social media personas to promote a mix of both original content, memes and news articles appropriated, and sometimes altered, from other sources. The narratives included anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as support for specific U.S. policies favorable to Iran, such as the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).

Banning dis information wow i say buzzfeed is horse shit. No its not banning disinformation. Its called silencing political opposition right b4 an election. Its what facists do. Should we expect anything else from the advertising wing of the democrat party. I do not. U think they will stop at conservatives? Not a chance next will come liberals who dont tow the party line. Facism is alive an well in democrat party

I believe Facebook did ban some fake news pages, but I would happily bet that ~many~ of the banned pages were counter to what side of the election process than what Facebook has decided is "Ok" with whomever is calling the shots at Facebook. One month before the election? Oh come on!

I'd love to see a breakdown of the pages by political position. I am willing to bet that the majority are right wing or libertarian pages while very few left leaning pages are impacted.
It's one of the propaganda tactics perfected in Nazi Germany. Silence dissent and echo party-line maxims. Scary times indeed.

Authors

Threatpost

InfoSec Insider Post

InfoSec Insider content is written by a trusted community of Threatpost cybersecurity subject matter experts. Each contribution has a goal of bringing a unique voice to important cybersecurity topics. Content strives to be of the highest quality, objective and non-commercial.

Sponsored

Sponsored Post

Sponsored Content is paid for by an advertiser. Sponsored content is written and edited by members of our sponsor community. This content creates an opportunity for a sponsor to provide insight and commentary from their point-of-view directly to the Threatpost audience. The Threatpost editorial team does not participate in the writing or editing of Sponsored Content.